Gina Fiore has lived quite the gambling life.
If you want to hear the whole story, I highly recommend Gamblers, a podcast from The Ringer. She was featured in the very first episode, and it seems almost ridiculous that Jessica Chastain hasn’t optioned this for Hollywood. I don’t want to give anything away, just trust me.
Anyway, she appeared on Capt. Jack Andrews’ “SuperStream 57” on Saturday night, where Andrews had on a who’s who of the sports betting world (and, somewhat inexplicably, me) to kibitz and discuss the Super Bowl. Andrews asked everyone to come with a side and a prop, and when Fiore took the stage, her prop caught everyone’s attention.
“Rihanna’s Fenty skin care line — which I’m sure all you guys know about, skin care and makeup — they have a game day collection, and everything’s pink,” she noted. “So I got Rihanna to come out in primary pink dress or shirt for +2500.”
.@rxgamble was single-handedly bringing down the Rihanna dress color market last night. pic.twitter.com/UwNzolPEWI
— Unabated (@UnabatedSports) February 12, 2023
Observe the reactions of everyone else on the screen. They (and me) were like dogs being called to dinner. It was obviously such a very, very, very sharp bet.
From there, Andrews kept the show moving, but a few minutes later, noted the odds had dropped to +1600. Then +1400. Then +1200. Then +1000. Then …
“I have it locked,” said Ben Cary of CapWize.
The market — which was only available at unregulated offshore books that don’t have a governing authority to answer to and can thus take bets on questions to which the answer is already known by some — cratered as a result of this discussion. In fact, almost all of the Rihanna-related props disappeared.
Butts and cleavage
“They took it all down except ‘would she show cleavage’ and ‘showing her butt,” Fiore noted. “The cleavage thing … I know she still had baby weight, and I saw an interview where she was covered up, and I thought, ‘Oh, she’s not comfortable, I know that feeling,’ and I knew she was not going to be showing cleavage. I should’ve bet more on that.” (It paid +250, for the record.)
At any rate, some 24 hours later, the halftime show was about to begin. Rihanna took to the stage and, while the rest of the known universe wondered if she was pregnant (she was), a very small portion of the viewing audience was concerned with something much more important: Was that dress red or pink?
omg
— rxgamble (@rxgamble) February 13, 2023
It certainly looked pink. Like, pinky pink. Pink puh-pink-pink-pink. I wasn’t the only one. Half the internet and 100% of my family thought it was pink.
That coat is a hot pink comforter, the dancers are in matchy sweatsuits, and the Rihanna comfy-core halftime show is all I’ve ever wanted.
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) February 13, 2023
But a certain offshore book thought it wasn’t, which caused levels of distress that would only be matched by Eagles bettors 90 minutes later after the James Bradberry holding call.
omfg they graded it a loss no fkn way pic.twitter.com/oMn2lmnCOH
— rxgamble (@rxgamble) February 13, 2023
In the end — and out of the lights — it was, sadly, clear. Rihanna wore red.
“Once they showed the offstage photos, obviously it’s red,” Fiore said. “My problem was tweeting in real time and then getting s**t for that.”
Like any good gambler, Fiore let the loss roll right off her shoulders, but she did note a flaw in her thinking.
“I failed to look at what light does on red,” she said. “It would be like a golf modeler who fails to look at what wind does to the ball.”
This had to have been the first lighting-related bad beat in sports betting history.
Now, to be fair to everyone here, “pink” does not technically exist as a color. The video below explains it better than I can, but suffice to say, pink does not exist. It is a trick of the brain.
After all this, one might think Fiore would be getting out of the fashion betting market.
“Oh, no, I think I might have a talent here,” she deadpanned. “I’ll start investigating that market. And if I spent a second thinking about it, I would’ve accounted for the red and I would’ve put something down. Red can look like pink.”
Truer words, my friends, truer words …
